Broadway Is Back

Positive returns and a slate of diverse Tony nominees bode well for New York City theater

- - by H. ALAN SCOTT

“IN THIS DAY AND AGE, WHERE THE ARTS SEEM to be a little bit under attack right now, I, more than I already did, understand the importance of the arts,” says Audra McDonald, who recently picked up her 11th Tony Award nomination for her take on Mama Rose in Gypsy. “The importance of telling stories and audiences coming together and experiencing our own humanity.”

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the arts hard, but particularly New York City’s iconic Broadway. Theaters were dark for 18 months, the longest shutdown in history, with a loss of billions of dollars.

The climb back from that has been slow. But the energetic vibe of the 2024-2025 season has box office data to reinforce the sense of optimism.

What's also notable about Broadway bouncing back is the range of shows that are box office hits. While politicians and institutions target diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the recipe for success on Broadway and at the Tonys in 2025 seems to be all-out diversification.

“People are just hungry to be surprised,” Conrad Ricamora, Tony-nominated for Oh, Mary! says. “I’m just happy that we're finally telling the truth about our first Filipino gay president, which was Abraham Lincoln.” [laughs]

Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola’s send up of Mary Todd Lincoln and her path to cabaret stardom, is just one example of a Tony-nominated show proving it can be diverse and financially successful. There’s Maybe Happy Ending, the South Korean musical starring Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen as two futuristic robots in love; Purpose, the Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a prominent Black political family in Chicago; Yellow Face, the semi-autobiographical play by David Henry Hwang starring Daniel Dae Kim; the campy musical take on the film Death Becomes Her; and, of course, the revival of